


Doesn't Feel Like Christmas

by linguaphilia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Mistletoe, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Stanford Era (Supernatural), do not repost this story to any other site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 01:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18488218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguaphilia/pseuds/linguaphilia
Summary: Christmas at Stanford doesn’t exactly feel like Christmas to Sam. Especially when the only thing he wishes for seems farther away than ever. A surprise visit, a little green army man, and a mistletoe just might turn this day around.





	Doesn't Feel Like Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone.  
> yes, I am aware it is April, but this thing has been haunting my harddrive for far too long  
> and I am putting it out there before I forget it again next Christmas. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> So, please enjoy some wholesome Christmas fluff in April!  
> 

*******

„Where is he?“

„Where do you think he is?“

“Still?”

“Moping in his room like a little girl? Yep.”

Tyler groaned. “What the fuck is wrong with him, man?! I thought he loved the holidays. Wasn’t he all eager like a kid on a sugar high just a couple of weeks ago?”

Brady choked out a surprised laugh at the comparison and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. He won’t talk about it.”

“Not even to you?” A hint of concern colored Tyler’s voice and for a moment he seemed to actually be genuinely worried.

“It’s not like he is a big talker, anyways”, replied Brady.

“Yeah, but that’s a new low, even for him. Never seen him so mopey. Should we just drag his ass out of his room and kidnap him?”

“Nah, I think we better leave him alone. Whatever got his panties in a twist, he has to work that out by himself. Besides, I rather not spend the night before Christmas coddling my ex-roommate, just because he’s on his period. Maybe he’ll be better tomorrow and come celebrate with the rest of us lonesome people, who can’t go home for Christmas.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Beer, now?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Brady winked and both of them left the dorm to go to their favorite bar located just off campus.

*******

Sam was miserable. He couldn’t honestly remember the last time he had felt that bad, ever, especially not on Christmas.

Sam loved Christmas, loved it since he was little. Definitively not because of fairytale childhood memories, because he didn’t have any, especially not any that were Christmas related.

Christmas in their family had been either ignored or celebrated by just him and his brother alone. It was seldom that the boys got presents, money was tight and toys weren’t exactly necessities, at least not in John Winchester’s book.

The reason that Sam had loved and still loved Christmas more than any other holiday though was Dean. His big brother never really showed any personal interest in the holidays himself, but he had always indulged Sam to not let the day pass without taking notice of it.

They may never have had a lot, but Dean always made sure that Sam got something. He got him a little army man, when Sam was five, got him a book on Greek mythology when he was twelve, skin mags when he was sixteen and a beautiful hunting knife, with a hand-carved handle when he was eighteen, to only name a few.

Sam had loved each and every gift and had handled them with care and devotion, managing to keep them all over the past years, all except one.

He had been six years old and they were traveling once again, sitting for hours on end in the car, Dean, their dad and Sam himself. The only distraction that little Sam had, while sitting in the backseat with his sleeping brother, was the little army man, Dean had given him the Christmas before. So Sam had played somewhat merrily and peacefully, shooting imaginary enemies and developing war strategies, until they made a stop to eat and stretch their legs.

Sam had realized that he didn’t have his little army buddy with him anymore two hours after they were back on the road again. He had searched frantically, animating Dean to help him, but soon had to realize that the little guy was definitively not there.  
Sam had been devastated. At first he was in denial, not believing that he lost this one toy that he held so dear and had gaped at his brother like a fish, then slowly the tears had come. First only a few, rolling down his rosy cheeks in silent heavy drops, but not long after that he was bawling his eyes out, wailing like a wounded animal and he couldn’t quiet down, even though his dad told him to.

Only when his brother had huffed and dragged him over to his seat to sit on his lap had he quieted down a little bit. He had still cried though, pressing his little face into his brother’s shoulder and whispering over and over again: “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.”

In Sam’s young life it felt like the most horrible mistake that he had ever made, losing his brother’s gift and as a result disappointing him.

Dean didn’t really understand why Sam was so upset at losing the toy. He didn’t see that Sam had not perceived the army man as just a toy, but more as a symbol for his brother’s love and that Sam felt that losing it would make Dean think that his little brother didn’t love him back. But even if Dean didn’t understand why Sam continued to mumble apologies through his tears, he had held him tighter to his chest anyway, trying to shield him from all the evil in the world, just like he always did.

Sam remembered that afternoon quite clearly, not just for the events themselves, but also for the fact that after that day he had never again lost any of Dean’s gifts. He had carried them around with him in his duffel from state to state, from job to job, even if his dad had pointed out more than once that it was just unnecessary baggage and even if some of the gifts were broken and bruised by then. He had always had them right by his side, even when he had packed his bags to go to Stanford. Nothing in the world could have kept him from taking them with him.

Now they were neatly stacked in a shoebox that was hidden underneath his horribly short bed in his dorm room and every now and again Sam would take them out to look at them fondly with sentimentality in his eyes and a painful ache in his chest.

Yesterday he had taken them out again. It had been a while and Sam had not been prepared for the cold, empty feeling of looking at his little collection. Every one of the gifts had Dean written all over them and that was the problem. It felt as if he had collected tiny, little pieces of Dean in this box, but even if they were all together, they could never form a complete Dean, because his brother was out there, somewhere, fighting for his life, each and every day and all that Sam had of him were memories and tokens of a bond that didn’t exist anymore.

It didn’t help that Sam knew that it was partly his fault that their connection was shattered. It was him, who had vanished into the night one fateful day two years ago, leaving only chaos behind and he knew that.

Sure, his dad had been angry, he never seemed to understand the choices that Sam made and sure, ugly things had been said, some of which Sam wished to take back now, but Sam had also not been blind to the underlying sadness in his father’s eyes. That kind of sadness was not one of disappointment, but one of loss and the inability to fix something that was so clearly broken.

Sam hadn’t lingered on this thought, though; he couldn’t have, because then he would have never taken the necessary step towards his independence and they would have ended up in that exact fight a few days or weeks later.

When Sam had finally walked through the door, he had risked his first and only glance at his brother that night and sometimes he wished Dean wouldn’t have looked back at him then, because it still felt almost too painful to bear what he had found in his brother’s eyes: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There was no anger, no resentment, pain or loss, not even confusion or the slightest bit of disappointment. Dean had looked him straight in the eye, but for the first time in his life he hadn’t seen him.

There had always been something special about the way that his older brother had looked at him. Whenever those deep green pools had lingered on him, Sam had had the feeling that he was seen, really seen, not just looked at. It felt as if Dean could see all of him with just his eyes: His emotions, his thoughts, his being. But not once had Sam been scared under those intense eyes. He had known that he was safe as long as those eyes were on him.

So, it had felt wrong when Dean had looked at him that night, like Sam’s decision had completely destroyed the balance of their bond. Dean’s eyes couldn’t find him anymore; all they could do now was look.

Sam had known in that very instant that he had broken something essential and delicate between them, something that most likely was irreparable. That something was not something Sam could explain to someone, it wasn’t something that had a name attached to it, it had just always been there between them, pulsing and breathing like a living being and Sam had killed it. He hadn’t meant to, it hadn’t been intentional, but leaving his brother had caused its demise and had left a gap between the brothers that had never been there before.

Neither of them had known how to deal with the gap, they had been standing on opposite sides of it, staring at each other, Sam at the door and Dean just one step behind their dad and with every passing second that Dean looked at Sam like a stranger, the gap had gotten wider.

Sam had had to leave then, because the courage to leave them behind -his family, his whole old life- had drained away so quickly with Dean’s look that he had forgotten for one second why he was even doing it.

Sam had naively thought that, once he was apart from his family and especially from Dean, time would heal the hurt. He would slowly forget about missing the bond to his brother and finally move on to be independent, not longer tied down by a duty that he had no say in. He had been wrong.

Yes, of course Sam had enjoyed being able to make his own choices, learn what he chose to learn, befriend people, go out, have fun and not constantly have to worry about not surviving the next day. It had been a nice change and the distance to his dad had also helped.

The last couple of years had been exhausting with the constant arguing and commanding and Sam just had to come to the conclusion that his dad and he would never see eye to eye about certain things.

The only cure for this mess that Sam had been able to think of was distance. He just needed room to breathe and figure out what kind of person he was outside of his family. Sam still stood by that aspect of his leaving, didn’t regret reaching for something more than just blood and gore for the rest of his life, but that didn’t mean that he was entirely happy with his decisions either.

Temper ran in the family and Sam was no exception to that, which sometimes led to snap decisions on his part that were not always easy to take back. The idea of going away to College had been at the back of Sam’s mind for a long time, but the actual decision to do it was made in anger, leaving rationality out of the mix completely.

Sam was not proud of the way he had made that final decision and when the anger had died down, a couple of days later, Sam was back to feeling guilty like hell.

He hadn’t been fair to his father or his brother. Springing that kind of a big decision on someone and just expecting them to deal with it was not the best way to handle the situation and Sam was aware of that, but the damage had already been done.

He had made the decision in a fit of rage, he had left, and he was now sitting here moping in his room, because he would be alone on Christmas. Those were just the stone cold facts.

Sam sighed deeply, and his bottom lip prodded out just a tiny, little bit to stress the image of a wounded puppy that he was depicting at the moment.

Last year’s Christmas, the first one that Sam had spent without his family, had just passed him by. There had always been classes to be at, papers to write, friends to meet and beers to drink. Most likely Sam’s self-preservation mode had kicked in just at the right time and had made him not think about what he was actually missing.

This year things were a little different, not only had Sam recently opened the box of Pandora, being the infamous shoe box underneath his bed, but also had he come to the realization that Christmas didn’t feel like Christmas this year. If he was honest to himself it hadn’t felt like Christmas last year either and if he was totally honest with himself he knew why that was.

Christmas, for Sam, had always been inseparably interwoven with his brother. Dean had always been there, come hell or high water. He had not only always gotten Sam a gift for Christmas, but he had also always made the day special somehow.

Sometimes, when their dad was out, Dean had sneaked Sam outside and they would stroll through the town, gazing into people’s living rooms, staring at all the lights and decorations, counting the presents under each tree and if they happened to be in a snowy state, throwing snowballs at each other until they were both soaked through and panting heavily.

Those rare, stolen moments were what Sam would put into a photo album if he had one, they defined Sam’s picture of happy childhood memories. Not surprisingly, for Sam, they all had his brother in them.

Now it was Christmas again and Sam could go out and look at the decorations, buy eggnog and listen to Christmas carols, but it would never feel like Christmas to him, no matter what he did, because the essential part was missing.

It wasn’t like Sam didn’t notice the absence of Dean on other days too. Often enough Sam had gotten a good grade or had learnt something particularly interesting or had gotten the phone number of that cute blonde that worked in the library or had been upset or happy or any kind of other emotion and had wanted to share it with Dean.

In the beginning he had sometimes even scanned the parking lot in front of school, trying to spot the Impala there out of sheer habit and then had cursed himself once he realized what he was doing.

Truth was that Sam always missed his brother. Always. The absence of him was always there, underneath his skin. He missed him when he was sitting in class, when he let his mind wander, when he ate, when he listened to music, when he was out with his friends… In short, he missed him with every breath he took.

Most days, though, Sam managed to shove the feeling down so deep that he could handle it, he could distract himself with whatever was closest, and he could pretend that he was actually happy with how his life had turned out.

Most days, though, were not today. Today the missing was overpowering. Every defense mechanism, that Sam had installed, simply vanished in the face of the holiday ahead.

He turned to lie on his side and fixated on the closed door of his room with an angry stare, as if it was responsible for the sour mood he was in.

It wasn’t fair, and Sam knew that, but he wanted, no ached, for Dean to magically appear and make everything better.

He tried to reason with himself, persuading himself that it wasn’t as crazy as it sounded, after all his brother had always been there before, comforting him through whatever life crisis he had had at the moment.

Granted, last year he had not been there for Sam, but that had been Sam’s fault alone. Sam had been the one walking out on his family, Sam had been the one destroying the bond to his brother and Sam had also been the one that had been to chicken to call his brother up and try to fix things.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t talked at all since he had left, but in the strained, superficial, five minute conversations, that they had shared, nothing real had been said.

In Sam’s mind Sam had said ‘I’m sorry’ close to a million times to his brother, but not once did the words actually come over his lips.

It had always been Dean who called Sam, magically knowing when Sam had time off -Sam didn’t ask- and the purpose of his calls was invariably easy to make out: Check if Sam is still alive and not in any trouble. Whenever Dean had gotten the necessary information out of Sam, he had always been fairly quick at ending their conversation and left Sam with a tingling feeling of half joy at hearing his brother’s voice and half grief for his cold, distant tone.

After a few calls, when Sam had figured out Dean’s interrogation tactics, he had tried to prolong the conversations by just rambling on about his day or anything else that would come to mind and hoping that Dean would counter with a story of his own, but it never worked. Dean would just tell him that he was busy or that he had to run and Sam would be cut off mid-goodbye by the sound of an empty line.

It had been frustrating, throwing Sam into the emotional spectrum from angry and annoyed to sad and depressed.

The first time it had happened, Sam had to actually hold back tears, which were stinging dangerously in his eyes. Dean had never hung up on him before. Never. And the experience brought him back to being a clumsy six year old, who just lost his army man and felt the desperate need to climb into his brother’s lap and beg for forgiveness. He had swallowed thickly and tried to will the tears back to where they came from, deciding that the next time Dean called, he would fix this.

Things had not worked out the way he had hoped, not the next call, not the call after that or the ones after that and at one point Sam had been so fed up with the situation that he had interrupted Dean, who was about to say goodbye once again, mid sentence and yelling: “Will you ever talk to me again?!”

Sam hadn’t planned on saying that, hadn’t planned on that at all, but now that it was out there, it seemed like some of the tension in Sam’s shoulders lifted. He didn’t need to elaborate what he meant with his question. Dean would understand, without a doubt, what Sam meant.

Silence had been the answer he got, the only sign that Dean hadn’t hung up was the shallow breathing on the other end.

Sam had waited tensely, hoping that he finally would get some kind of reaction from his brother, some reaction that wasn’t planned or staged or so damn neutral.

“I have to go, Sammy. Take Care.”

Sam’s chest constricted painfully, and he wanted to scream at Dean, he wanted to plead, he wanted to apologize, tell him what was really going on inside his head and how much he missed him, but Dean had been long gone before he could even get his mind to form a coherent sentence.

The only thing comforting Sam to some extent at that low point of their relationship had been that for the first time in months Dean’s voice had sounded like something. He had sounded like there was actually still emotion in him towards Sam or at least towards the situation. It had been a speck of hope, but unfortunately it came with a big pile of hurt. Hurt that extended far over that particular moment, because Dean didn’t call Sam again for several weeks after that.

Sam hadn’t known if Dean had done it because he wanted to punish him somehow, or because he just wanted to avoid the topic that Sam had brought up or -and he feared that possibility- because he had decided once and for all that he would break off the contact to Sam completely.

When Dean had called him again, weeks after Christmas had passed, he had almost been too thankful to hear his voice again that he nearly missed that Dean -for the first time since their calls started- actually let him finish his rambling.

Dean hadn’t said anything, hadn’t commented on his story, but Sam had still had a little smile on his lips when that particular conversation ended.

The next couple of phone calls had come in bigger intervals -Sam guessed that Dean was working a case-, but Dean always would let him finish his rambling and not simply hang up on him once he was finished.

His brother still wouldn’t comment, chuckle or, God forbid, share a thing or two himself, but that was okay. Sam was happy with what he got, and he gladly told Dean everything that was going on with him in exorbitant detail if it meant that he could hear Dean breathing in his ear for a little while longer. Just knowing that he was on the other end made everything better somehow.

Now, though, it was Christmas again and Sam hadn’t heard from Dean in weeks. Weeks! And the more time passed the more nervous Sam got. Of course he knew that Dean could take care of himself -in times past he had never failed to remind Sam of it- , but that wasn’t a huge comfort to Sam, who knew what kind of creatures go bump in the night.

He couldn’t focus on candy canes, eggnog or wrapping presents for his friends, not when he was so worried about Dean that it nearly consumed him.

Sam grinned softly, thinking about how Dean -well the ‘old Dean’- would tease him because of this.

He sighed, sat up on the bed and laid his head in his hands. It was Christmas Eve, he was tired and lonely and if someone would have asked him in that exact moment what he wished for for Christmas, Sam would know exactly what he would say.

The knock startled him, Sam’s head snapped up and for a few heart beats he just listened to the silence of his room, convinced that the noise he just heard had only been in his imagination.

When the same noise appeared again though, Sam frowned, stood up and inanimately shuffled towards the door.

He had thought Brady and Tyler had gone out for a couple of drinks. If they were here to drag him out, he seriously considered slamming the door in their faces. Friends or not, he was so not in the mood for a night out.

Sam put on his best scowl and opened the door with vigor, simultaneously already complaining: “I told you, I don’t feel like going out, but do you ever listen… No. I swear to god, you two are the spawn of…”

Sam stopped midsentence, eyes going as wide as saucers, while he was frozen to the spot. The door handle slipped out of his limp hand and the door banged against the wall with an audible bounce.

“Merry Christmas, Sammy.”

Sam still stared at him, not believing his eyes. Yes, he loved Christmas and all of its traditions, but not once had he considered Christmas miracles as a real thing. Christmas miracles were a cliché, a fairy tale. Just because it was Christmas great things didn’t just magically happen. Miracles in general just simply didn’t happen and definitively not to him. But there one was, standing on his welcome mat, looking tired, worn out and a little tense but also real and substantial and right there.

“Sammy?”, he asked again, hesitantly and a little confused and Sam realized that he had done nothing but stand there and gape at him like a fish.

“Dean”, he breathed and shook his head a little as if to shake off his trance. “You’re here”, he pointed out unnecessarily. “What… What are you doing here?”

Dean linked his eyes to Sam’s: “It’s Christmas, isn’t it”, he just said, apparently thinking that it would suffice as an explanation.

Sam was ready to open his mouth and ask further, but his brother interrupted him: “Can I come in?”

And Sam was reminded that they still stood in his doorway, giving everybody who was crowding the hallway at the moment a show.

“Sure”, he said, stepping aside so Dean could enter and then closing the door after his brother, when he moved to the middle of the room.

Sam nervously looked down at his socks and back up to Dean, trying and failing to find something to say, -no, not just something… the right thing- while fiddling with his hands.

His brother stood there, with the back to him, taking in Sam’s room and generally being too calm, too collected, as if this was just another routine visit, something that he did regularly.

It made Sam nervous that nothing was said, but he also was too scared about possibly saying the wrong thing to say anything at all.

“Nice room you got there, Sammy”, Dean finally said and turned around.

Sam stared at him and didn’t know how to reply to that for one second. Dean sounded strange; there was no teasing in his voice, but also no underlying anger. His voice sounded small as if he didn’t really know what to say either and that was just wrong. If there was one thing that Sam could state with absolute certainty about his brother, it was that he always knew what to say. The unusual awkwardness in his demeanor made Sam feel unsettled and he began to fear that his Christmas miracle came with a catch.

“Thanks, it’s… um… dorms, you know”, he answered finally, surprised about the soft and almost unsure tone of his own voice. “

Yeah”, Dean acknowledged and silence settled in once more.

“Dean, why are you really here?... Did something happen?... Are you okay?”, Sam tried again, cautiously.

Dean looked up at him and his eyes found Sam’s in an instant. “It’s Christmas, Sammy”, he said softly, and Sam saw a lot flashing in the depths of his eyes at that exact moment.

There were emotions, there was pain, but there were also fond memories mirroring in them and with that look their connection instantaneously snapped back into place. The feeling slammed into Sam like an express train and it left him gasping for breath and at the same time finally breathing. After months of silence, distance and a gap impossible to cross, Sam had gotten his brother back.

The difference was small, so very tiny that any outside spectator wouldn’t have noticed it, but Sam was no outside spectator. He saw the change in the way that Dean looked at him now, opposed to the way he looked at him the last time they saw each other face to face. Dean didn’t just look anymore, he finally saw him again and the realization almost brought tears to Sam’s eyes.

“It’s Christmas”, he echoed, choked up, but still clear enough that Dean understood that he understood.

“I have something for you”, Dean said and sat down on his bed, looking up expectantly at Sam.

“You… You do?”, Sam asked, completely baffled.

“Can’t show up on Christmas without a gift, now can I?”, Dean asked rhetorically and padded the bed next to him. “Come here.”

Sam followed without a conscious thought, still overwhelmed by everything that was happening.

Dean was here, he was okay, he apparently didn’t hate him enough to never forgive him and he also apparently brought him a gift. Sam was still trying to wrap his head around all this when he reached the bed and sat down on the soft sheets an arm’s length away from his brother.

Sam’s eyes darted nervously between Dean and his own hands, which he kneaded absentmindedly. He was kind of terrified, not sure what to expect from his brother.

Meanwhile, Dean seemed to be a whole lot of nervous himself, which was again completely out of character for him and made Sam only more nervous. His older brother’s hands shook slightly as he reached inside his jacket, fumbling for the hidden pocket there and Sam held his breath.

His hand reappeared with a longish, slender package wrapped in newspaper sheets and that image alone gave Sam a pang of sentimentality. Each and every gift Sam had received over the last years from his brother had been wrapped in the same fashion and seeing Dean offer the gift to him now took him back to every time that scene had occurred in the past.

“Here… It’s actually for last year”, said Dean quietly and scratched the back of his head, a tell tale sign that he was uncomfortable with a situation.

“Last year?”, Sam almost whispered.

“Yeah… I… um wanted to give it to you last year... but well…”, Dean half explained and didn’t look Sam in the eye.

He didn’t need to explain any further. Sam got the idea loud and clear. Dean hadn’t wanted to come see him last Christmas, because of the way things had been between them at that point.

Sam swallowed the lump in his throat. It hurt that things had gone so bad between them that Dean had considered not seeing him as the better alternative.

Sam shook of the uneasiness and realized that Dean’s gift was still hanging there in mid air and Dean still didn’t look directly at him.

He quickly reached out and if his fingers trembled a bit, he couldn’t do anything to stop it. His heart pounded loudly in his ears when his fingers closed over the wrapping paper and the sheets rustled familiarly through the transfer.

Sam looked at the gift, lying in his hand. It was almost as long as the span between the bottom of his palm and his pinky and maybe two fingers wide. Sam had no idea what it was.

“Aren’t you gonna open it?”, Dean asked, uncertainty and strain coloring his voice.

“I… err… sure”, Sam hastily replied and fumbled with the sheets.

Of course, he was curious about the contents of the package, but his head was still elsewhere, trying to figure out this utterly unexpected situation.

Merely five minutes ago he had been moping on his bed by himself, feeling sorry for himself about being alone on Christmas and now his brother was here, sitting only a few inches away from him and handing him presents. It was all a little much to process.

The sheets gave after a couple of insistent tucks and Sam parted them. His blood was still loud in his ears and he was terrified and excited at the same time about what he might find.

Out of the paper and into his hand fell a pen. Sam let the paper slid to the floor and ran his fingers over the smooth, elegant texture of the expensive looking fountain pen. It was beautiful.

When he opened it, he saw that the actual pen was golden with delicate carvings on the metal that Sam couldn’t quite decipher with just one look. The helve was made out of smooth, dark brown cherry wood that stretched over the whole length until the silver cap at the end. But the one thing that really drew in Sam’s attention was the clearly handmade precise carving on the top of the cap.

It must have taken a really steady hand, an extremely sharp knife and a whole lot of patience to get the tiny lines to spell out what they did now. Just seven, precise, little lines but they spelled out ‘S.W.’.

“You like it?” Sam got snapped out of his pure admiration of this perfect gift by Dean’s question and he had to take a calming breath to collect his thoughts.

“It’s really… really great”, he said quietly and then looked up at his brother. “Thank you, Dean.” He let his eyes speak for himself and he wasn’t surprised that Dean didn’t hold his look for a long time.

“Yeah? I just thought with you being here and all… A pen might come in handy”, he said as if Sam had asked him to justify his gift.

“It will… It does.”, Sam replied and thumbed over his own initials. “You do that yourself?”, he asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it anyway.

Dean saw the movement and shrugged. “Yeah. Thought it needed a personal touch, you know? So you won’t lose it, or something.”

“I won’t”, Sam immediately stated with fierce gravity.

Dean looked up and their eyes met. The little moment stretched out impossibly wide and neither of them seemed to be able to look away.

“Sometimes things do get lost, Sammy”, Dean said quietly after a sheer eternity and it wasn’t hard to hear the underlying pain in the statement.

“I know”, he said with just as much pain in his own voice coupled with a good amount of regret. “But I have never lost any of your gifts.”

Sam didn’t know why he said that, it had just come out of his mouth with no barrier like his brain in the way.

Dean blinked a few times rapidly, obviously confused and surprised at the confession. Of course his brother had known that Sam had collected his gifts over the years. When two people lived in each other’s back pockets like those two, not a whole lot went unnoticed. But Dean had not known that Sam’s collection still existed, had it been years since the last time he saw it and he also did not know that Sam had taken it with him to Stanford.

“What?”, Dean asked, face scrunched up in confusion.

“I just… I… err”, Sam stammered and awkwardly ducked his head.

“You just what?”, Dean inquired, needless to say he couldn’t figure out any of Sam’s gibberish.

Avoiding the actual embarrassment to explain himself, Sam got up, ducked down and retrieved the worn cardboard box from its hiding place. He handed it out to Dean and without a word sat back down next to him, slumped in on himself and tried to hide underneath his bangs.

Dean eyed the box on his lap with a suspicious look but went to open up the lid anyway.

For the second time today Sam held his breath, while his heart pounded too quickly in his chest.

It were painfully tense seconds when Dean’s eyes changed from suspicious to surprised to fond and Sam gnawed at his poor, bottom lip, waiting for his brother’s reaction.

Dean took out item by item as the silence stretched between them. He looked at everything thoroughly as if he was taking inventory, letting his fingers trace every piece with the same absent expression on his face.

Sam didn’t know why but this moment seemed to be crucial, a lot seemed to depend on Dean’s reaction. It was important to him what Dean would say to his collection, it felt like there whole relationship somehow hung in the balance at that exact moment.

“You kept them”, Dean said with a far away tone to his voice, almost reverent.

“Yeah”, Sam breathed, somehow not able to up the volume.

“All of them. They’re all here”, Dean said again, turning his head and looking at Sam and Sam saw the unshed tears glinting in his eyes then.

He swallowed thickly. “Almost”, he whispered, nearly too quietly to be understood. “I lost one of them, remember?”, he added and bowed his head in sadness.

“Yeah, I remember”, Dean confirmed, and Sam felt like he couldn’t even look at him right now.

His eyes began to sting and he tried so hard to prevent it but after a few seconds his shoulders began to shake slightly and heavy tears dropped out of his eyes. He kept his head down, hoping Dean would just give him a moment to collect himself so he could stop crying like a six year old, but things did not turn out that way.

A warm, familiar hand landed on Sam’s shoulder and somehow that only made it worse. He sniffled loudly and then the dam finally broke.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m so sorry”, he apologized with a painful hitch to his voice. Sam was apologizing for so many things at once that his head swam from them.

He wished he would be coherent enough to explain himself to Dean, finally say the things that he had been holding in for way too long, but so much old pain and unresolved emotions came crushing down on him right then that he couldn’t get a phrase out other than ‘I’m sorry’, over and over again, because one time just didn’t seem to be enough. Sam could only hope that his brother would understand, that he would see that Sam finally apologized for leaving him behind without a word of explanation.

Sam heard a deep sigh and then: “Sammy.”

Dean’s voice was strung out and wrecked and it sounded exactly like Sam felt at the moment: Broken. Like a beautiful picture frame shattered into a million, tiny pieces, desperately hoping for anyone to fix it but doubting that it would be possible.

He felt warm arms pulling him in, bypassing the little distance still between them and then his face collided softly with a broad shoulder. He was six years old again, crying his soul out, hoping that his big brother still loved him and that he could forgive him his mistake.

It was harder than it should have been for Sam to not actually attempt to climb into Dean’s lap, but he just pressed his face into the familiar, worn leather that was almost impossibly soft and feel the warmth radiating from Dean’s chest and warming him up from the inside out instead.

“It’s okay, Sammy… It’s okay”, Dean soothed and uncoordinatedly but gently petted his unruly mop of hair. And it was okay, not until that moment, but as soon as Dean had said it, because Dean had meant it and that meant that Sam was given a second chance.

Sam lifted his head from Dean’s shoulder and tried to wipe the wetness from his face. He looked at his brother and Dean looked back, open now, not holding anything back.

“I’m sorry that I left for Stanford like I did, I’m sorry that we never really talked after that, I’m sorry that I never apologized and I’m so damn sorry that I lost your little army man”, Sam listed with his tear heavy voice.

“It’s okay, Sammy”, Dean repeated his earlier words and Sam read in his eyes that he meant it.

Dean had never been a man of many words, but Sam understood the few ones he got perfectly fine. If Dean could let go of all the old anger and disappointment and pain and give their relationship another try, then so could Sam.

Maybe in this case it wasn’t necessary to make a lot of words about what had went wrong, maybe it was better to focus on all the good things that they shared and all the things that were worth saving.

The younger Winchester snuffled audibly and reached for the pen that lay forgotten on the sheets. “This is perfect, Dean. I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you.”

Dean smiled softly and warmth spread through Sam at the sight. He had missed this expression on his brother’s face.

“Nah… That’s okay. I’m glad you like it”, he just put him off. “It’s not like you knew I was coming anyway.”

“No, I didn’t. I’m glad you did, though”, Sam said softly.

“Yeah, me too.”

They smiled at each other for a moment and the warmth was there again, comforting and insistent spreading from his chest through his whole body. Seeing Dean smile like that seemed to literally warm him up.

“I got something else for you”, Dean said and this time his face really lit up.

“What?! No. Dean, this is more than enough. I can’t…”

“Don’t worry it’s nothing big and you are going to take it, because the pen was last year’s present and this -he took out another package from his jacket- is this year’s present. No back talk!”

This package was significantly shorter than the pen, but wider. It fit perfectly in Sam’s huge palm when Dean placed it in it and his skin tingled where his brother’s fingers had touched.

“It’s just… I saw it and I thought… Well… I hope you like it”, Dean stammered, unusually nervous again and Sam didn’t want to torture him longer than necessary and opened his present.

His eyes went huge when the paper revealed what was inside and he looked down on it and then up at Dean, who wore a tight smile and a haunted look in his eyes.

“Dean”, Sam just breathed, took it out and lovingly traced its form.

“It’s not the exact one, but it looked close enough and I just thought maybe…”, Dean trailed off and clearly waited for anything verbal to come out of Sam’s mouth, but he was too busy trying to hold back the tears that threatened to spill again.

“You remembered”, he said in awe.

“Of course, I did! You were so upset back then when you lost it. I never forgot that.”

Sam smiled and at the same time his eyes glazed over. “I was upset because I thought you would hate me”, he replied softly.

Dean’s eyebrows shot up. “Could never hate you, Sammy. I -did- never hate you.”

Sam understood. He pulled Dean in for a tight, bone crushing hug and breathed in his familiar scent. Home, save, loved.

He felt Dean making calming circles on his back, but pulled back slightly when he felt him tracing his spine. That was new.

Their faces were only inches apart. Sam looked at Dean and Dean looked at Sam. There was something there. Warm and new and unmistakably stronger than the bond they had shared before but Sam couldn’t put his finger on in. He smiled shyly at his brother, slightly uncomfortable in the new, kind of different tension that crackled between them and Dean half smiled back, apparently feeling the same.

“So…”, Dean said and stepped away from him, clearly needing to put distance between them. “How come you’re alone on Christmas?”

Sam breathed out a sigh of relief when Dean’s body heat disappeared in front of him, somehow it had made it hard to think, well hard to think clearly. He scratched the back of his head self-consciously and didn’t really look at Dean at all.

“I… umm... Didn’t feel like going out tonight?”, he offered, more as a question than a statement.

“Why not? I mean it is Christmas, right? You could hang out with those friends of yours that you told me about. What was it… Brady and Trevor?”

“Tyler”, Sam corrected absentmindedly. “Yeah, I could have, but I kind of didn’t feel like celebrating.” His voice trailed off and became almost a whisper.

“But it’s Christmas”, Dean stressed, “And it’s you“, he added.

“Didn’t feel like Christmas until half an hour ago”, Sam mumbled and hid his eyes again, because he felt the glowing green ones of his brother fixated on his face.

Dean let out a long breath. “What are you saying, Sammy?”, he asked.

Sam sighed.

Yeah, what was he saying? Maybe for once in the last two years he was actually saying what he really felt.

“I missed you a lot, you know? But it always gets worse over the holidays”, he explained silently.

Dean’s gaze on him never wavered and Sam had to look up when Dean finally replied. “Yeah it does”

Dean laughed roughly and without humor. “Didn’t even celebrate Christmas last year. Well unless you count Dad giving me a case with a vengeful spirit as a Christmas present”, he said and it sounded sad and slightly bitter.

Dean pressed his lips tightly together just like he always did when some of the true feelings he kept locked inside accidently slipped out.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I should have… I should have called.” Sam beating himself up for not calling his brother was nothing new but having the info that Dean had been working a job all by himself on Christmas only made it worse.

“Don’t be. I guess you were busy celebrating with your friends, huh?”

Dean’s words stung, not because he said them as an accusation but because his brother seemed to actually believe that his friends could be more important to him than Dean.

“I wasn’t. Didn’t celebrate last year either. Just didn’t feel right with you not here”, he explained and looked Dean straight in the eye, hoping that his intense gaze would convey that he meant every word like he said it.

“Huh”, Dean said noncommittal, but Sam saw the tiny, pleased smile on his lips anyway.

“You feel like celebrating now?”

Sam smiled. “Are you kidding? I got a surprise visit from my brother and two awesome gifts. I couldn’t be more in the spirit than I am now.”

Dean chuckled. “Well than quit standing there and haul out the eggnog!”

Sam frowned.

“You don’t have any?!”

Sam just had to crack up over that scandalized face of his brother and boy did it feel good to laugh like this again. “Don’t fret yet, dear brother of mine, I might be able to sneak us some from the common room.”

Dean rolled his eyes at his antics. “Then get going!”

Sam grinned and crossed the room to get to the door.

“And if you could get us something to eat, I wouldn’t mind”, Dean called after him.

Sam laughed. “Of course you wouldn’t. I see what I can do.”

He walked till the end of the hallway and shortly after ended up in the common room. A half empty bottle of eggnog was quickly found, along with some plastic cups and a bag of chips.

Only a few students were sitting in the common room, some were just chatting and others were watching a cheesy Christmas movie on the old TV at one end of the room. But no one seemed to pay him any attention.

When Sam turned around Dean was standing in the doorframe and curiously looked around, grinning when his eyes met Sam. Sam crossed the room.

“You were taking too long”, Dean said as an explanation and grinned smugly at him.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah. Just take some of the stuff, okay?” He handed over some of what was in his arms and once again his skin tingled, where they touched.

Dean cleared his throat and Sam swallowed thickly.

“Mistletoe.”

Sam jumped and stepped away from the distracting warmth of his brother.

He turned around and saw that most of the heads were turned to them now and the same voice, belonging to a girl sitting on one of the couches, said again: “Mistletoe.”

Sam’s head snapped up and as it happens there actually was a mistletoe hanging in the doorframe. Sam’s cheeks reddened slightly and he wanted to explain that they were brothers and that he would absolutely not kiss him, but somehow no words came out.

He nervously looked at his brother, who had an undefined expression on his face.

“Mistletoe, Sammy”, he repeated, and his voice had a rough edge to it.

Sam didn’t know what to do. Was Dean playing with him? Did he really want Sam to kiss him? And did he want to kiss Dean?! That was crazy, wasn’t it?

“Come on, happy couple, show us a kiss”, the girl demanded sweetly, and Sam cringed internally.

Happy couple? Did she really think Dean and him were a couple? Did that mean she had picked up on the weird tension that seemed to flicker between them ever since Dean was here? Was he maybe not imagining that there was really something strange going on between them?

Sam’s heart hammered loudly in his chest and he panted silently as if he had run a marathon. Dean didn’t look away from him but didn’t do anything to resolve the situation either.

What the hell was going on?

Sam’s eyes flickered to Dean’s mouth and back.

Did he really want this?

He knew that he could resolve the situation by just saying one word but somehow it seemed impossible.

He slightly leaned forward, Dean’s gaze intensified but he didn’t move away or flinch or laugh or anything.

He could hear the chanting now, behind them, apparently others had taken an interest in the situation and were watching them closely now. “Kiss… Kiss… Kiss”, he heard, but it seemed far away, everything seemed far away except Dean’s eyes and Dean’s lips.

He had saved Christmas, he had restored their bond, he had given Sam another beautiful memory, another two tokens of his love and maybe it was time that Sam gave something back.

He quickly dipped his head down -Stanford had made him taller than Dean now- and even more quickly pecked him on the lips. It was just a light pressure, lips against lips, gentle and timid and soft, but Sam could feel it tingle everywhere.

He opened his eyes again and found Dean’s. The room was clapping now, demanding more, but Sam couldn’t stand to be there for even a second longer.

He scraped by Dean’s form and left him behind with sure, long steps. Everything he could think about was getting away, getting out and forgetting whatever it was that was happening with him.

He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t kiss his brother. What the hell had he been thinking?! He had wanted it, no denying that and it had felt good, no denying that either. But even so… What the hell?! Since when did he want to kiss his brother?

Without realizing where he was actually going, Sam found himself pacing in his own room again and only a minute or so later the door snapped shut. Sam’s head flew up and he saw Dean standing there at the door, looking tense and maybe a little wary.

Dean was the last person he wanted to talk to right now. He couldn’t explain, couldn’t justify what he had done and he absolutely couldn’t tell Dean…

“What was that?”

Sam’s whole body clenched. He didn’t know. What the hell could he answer? “I don’t know”, he said, and panic spread through him and choked him.

“You don’t know? You kissed me, Sam.”

There was no teasing, no joking in his voice. Dean understood that the kiss hadn’t been a prank, he had seen that Sam really had wanted to do it.

“I know”, he breathed.

“Did you want to kiss me?”, Dean asked again and stepped inside the room and closer to Sam.

Sam stepped away. “I… I don’t know… Yes… Maybe?”

What good would lying do, Dean always saw right through him.

“Did you like it?”

Why did Dean do this to him? He didn’t seem mad, but he didn’t seem amused either, Sam didn’t know what he seemed. Sam didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. Why was Dean not yelling at him, why had he not stopped him?

“Sammy”, Dean said and stepped into his personal space. “Did you like it?”

Sam worried his bottom lip and then nodded jerkily.

A warm hand cupped his face and tilted it upwards, so he had to look into Dean’s eyes. “You could have had that a lot sooner. All you had to do was ask”, he said quietly and then he pressed their lips back together.

It was just as gentle, timid and soft as earlier, but now that it was Dean that was kissing him, he could fall into it easier.

He closed his eyes and felt Dean’s soft lips brush his again and again, never adding pressure, just testing and searching and exploring. Every nerve end of Sam’s body tingled, warmth spread through every cell and he had difficulty breathing and at the same time difficulty thinking anything else but: Home, save, loved.

Dean’s hands, which had held his face in a gentle hold, let go after a couple of minutes and he pressed his lips for one last time against Sam’s before he took a half step back.

Sam missed the warmth instantaneously and he had to restrain himself from reaching out and bringing his brother close again.

Sam swallowed and stared at Dean. He still looked the same, hadn’t changed a bit with his leather jacket and spiky hair and blazing eyes. So how come their whole relationship seemed to have changed in only minutes?

“What did you mean?”, Sam asked, when he found his voice again.

Dean frowned in confusion.

“When you said ‘sooner’.”, he specified.

Dean’s jaw clenched. “Nothing.”

“Dean”, Sam pleaded.

He had to know. If Dean had an explanation for what was going on here, he had to know.

Dean sighed. “I meant that if we had stood underneath a mistletoe two years ago, I wouldn’t have backed down either.”

Sam looked at him blankly. Two years?!

“I had no idea”, Sam said unnecessarily, his expression said that loud and clear.

“I know.” A sad smile appeared on Dean’s lips. “Never wanted you to know, but I guess you can’t escape a mistletoe, huh?”

“You… But I… left!”, Sam said, understanding now the full repercussions of that confession.

“Yeah, well… Couldn’t blame you, Sammy”, Dean said and shrugged.

“I’m sorry, Dean”, Sam apologized with sadness haunting his voice.

“I know, Sammy. Bygones, okay?”

Sam nodded unsurely.

“What is happening with us, Dean?”, he asked with a small voice.

Dean ran his hands through his hair and barked out a strained laugh. “I don’t have a clue.”

“But it’s okay, right? I mean, we can figure this out?”, Sam asked again.

Dean smiled slightly. “Yeah, we can figure this out.”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief.

“Eggnog?”, he offered then and laughed at the abstruse situation. Dean joined in.

“Err… sure.”

They filled two cups and clinked them together.

“To spending Christmas right”, Dean toasted, and Sam echoed it while smiling softly at his brother: “To spending Christmas right.”

They each sipped at their beverage and didn’t say a word until Dean broke the silence. “This is ridiculous, isn’t it? Why is it so awkward?”

Sam laughed. “I don’t know.”

“Do you just want to sit down on your bed, drink eggnog and eat some chips?”

“Sounds good”, Sam agreed, and they went on to do exactly that.

The dorm bed was a tight fit, but they managed to sit side by side, leaning against the headboard and stretching their legs out. A comfortable silence settled in, only broken by the crunch of the chips and the crinkle of the Styrofoam cups.

After a while they both lay their hands on their thighs and accidently their knuckles brushed. Sam looked up at Dean and he stared right back, then Sam linked their hands together. Sam waited and smiled slightly when Dean’s thumb stroked his skin.

“Okay?”, he asked.

“Okay”, Dean answered.

He settled back into a comfortable position and after a while even laid his head on Dean’s shoulder. It was warm and comfortable and it didn’t even appear in Sam’s mind at that moment that anyone could consider this as wrong.

They sipped their eggnog, felt the warmth of the other’s body and Sam was thinking that out of all his Christmas memories this one would definitively be the best.

When both cups were empty and only crumbles were left of the chips, Dean turned his head, smiled warmly at Sam and bowed down to kiss him. Sam didn’t flinch away, didn’t even feel the need to. Dean tasted like eggnog, chips and his own, original taste and Sam just closed his eyes and let it happen.

When they parted, minutes had passed, and Sam felt slightly dizzy but happy at the same time.

“Merry Christmas, Sammy”, Dean said, and Sam answered with a smile. “Merry Christmas.”

He laid his head back down on Dean’s shoulder, soaked in his warmth and linked their hands back together.

Sam still didn’t know what was happening between them, where this would lead, if it was leading them somewhere, but when his eyes fell on the little green army man, now standing on his bedside table, Dean’s second gift, Dean’s perfect gift, he realized that he was not scared to find out, because now, here, in his brother’s arms Christmas had never felt more like Christmas before.

_The End_


End file.
